


The World Was Saved

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Massage, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisa can’t risk letting Dean stay when he comes to her after Sam goes to Hell, so now Dean is alone. Dean has lost his love, his brother, and everything he ever had, and his grief is the one monster he can’t defeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Was Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Dean and Supernatural aren't mine. If they were, I wouldn't put him through all this. ;-)

Dean had been lonely before. He was lonely when he and Sam fought and parted over Sam’s demon blood addiction. He was lonely when Sam went to Stanford and Dad lost himself in his obsession. Hell, he was lonely half the time when Sam was in the car, two feet away from him, lecturing him about eating vegetables. But he had never been lonely like _this._  
  
Lisa had been kind when he landed on her doorstep after Sam went to Hell to stop Lucifer. She was sympathetic, loving…. and after a couple of days had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he couldn’t stay. He had seen the pain, the regret in her eyes, but it changed nothing. After he had told her everything, she simply couldn’t risk it—if it had been just her, she said, maybe. But she had to think about Ben.  
  
Dean understood. In a way it was a relief. He was no threat, no risk to anyone anymore. They were all gone, and he was just a leaf loose on the winds of the world, tossed this way and that, no one to care where he landed. _Maybe more like a rock being kicked down a hill,_ he thought, groaning as he shifted his weight to ease his bruised hip. The Impala’s upholstery wasn’t kind to his battered flesh. That shifter in the last town had a penchant for fisticuffs; that was bad enough, but the bastard didn’t have to throw him down a flight of stairs before he finally got some damn silver into it.  
  
There was no case right now. Dean had nowhere in particular to go. He thought of Bobby, as he often did when there was no work to do, when he didn’t feel, for once, like disappearing into a bottle. He could go and see him. He found himself calculating how long the drive to Sioux Falls would take before he could stop himself. Bobby would be glad to see him, would drink with him and even hunt with him when he was ready. But that door, too, was closed to him.  
  
He hadn’t told Bobby he was hunting again. Bobby believed he was with Lisa, working some straight job and living in domestic bliss. Dean didn’t know why he did it, why he couldn’t tell him. Bobby would understand his choice; he would get that hunting was all there was for Dean. But if Dean told him, then it would be real. It would be forever. This would be Dean’s life, his only life, until something killed him and it was finally over.  
  
So instead, he called Bobby now and then and filled his ear with boring tales of his life with Lisa and Ben. He talked about PTA meetings, playground fights, grocery shopping and mice in the garage. He had no idea where this shit came from, but Bobby seemed to swallow it. Of course, Bobby didn’t know anything more about that life than Dean did, so he was unlikely to question anything.  
  
Right now, he didn’t feel like calling him. It was the middle of the day, so he couldn’t go to a bar to look for a girl, and the idea made him feel kind of sick anyway. He could hit the liquor store, find a hotel with pay-per-view, and try to disappear for a while. But somehow he just stayed behind the wheel. Just kept driving through town.  
  
He turned corners aimlessly, finding himself in a neighborhood unlike any he ever visited for a job. It was a quiet, tree-lined city of medium size, and he was someplace between the urban center and suburbia. Overpriced shops and fairly nice houses; he probably couldn’t afford a hotel in this area. But the place held a strange sort of contentment. It was like… everything was OK here. People liked their lives and didn’t have much to worry about.  
  
After glancing at the needle hovering over E, he pulled into a strip mall to stop for gas. As he filled her up, he looked at the shops across the street. There was a massage place there. Not the kind Dean usually visited—a nice one. He couldn’t get a rub-and-tug there, he was pretty sure. It would be clean, professional, and people there would talk to him about normal things, would assume he was a normal person.  
  
He strode into the gas station bathroom and checked himself out. He was clean enough. He sniffed his armpit. There was no strong whiff, but he could stand a clean shirt, he reflected. He returned to the Impala and pulled one out of his duffle. He tossed his battered denim jacket in the back—it was too warm for it anyway—and changed into a fresh T-shirt. No holes in it or anything, and his jeans looked OK, too. He finger-combed his hair, and a glance in the rearview told him he looked almost respectable. The kind of person a nice, professional massage therapist wouldn’t mind touching.  
  
He parked in front of the place and tried to dredge up some charm, in case he needed it. When he walked in, the place was quiet. Clean and respectable, like he’d thought, more like a doctor’s office than a massage parlor, with a nice waiting room, decorated with the kinds of colors people thought were soothing and a little plug-in fountain and shit. He almost turned and left, but then the woman behind the counter greeted him.  
  
“Hi there,” she said, standing up from her desk. “Were you interested in a massage?”  
  
She was about Dean’s age or a little older, and she went with this place: quietly pretty and respectable-looking. Classy and well-dressed. The kind of chick Dean would never consider hitting on in a bar, because that was definitely barking up the wrong tree. But she smiled at him expectantly, and what the hell? Looking at her, Dean felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to be touched by her. Just to be touched. He was confused to find that it wasn’t particularly a sexual attraction, even though she was definitely hot: she came out from behind the counter to talk to him, and he upgraded his assessment from quietly pretty to beautiful, in an understated way. Again, the kind of chick who wouldn’t give Dean the time of day usually. The massage would be expensive, probably, but Dean suddenly didn’t care.  
  
“Yeah,” he answered. “I, um, didn’t have an appointment. Do you have time for a walk-in?”  
  
The woman laughed. “Definitely. You’re the first person to come in today; it’s been weirdly quiet. I sent my other therapists home and was thinking I’d close up in an hour or so if no one came by. People don’t go for massages as much in hot weather.”  
  
“Well, great. How much for an hour?” He winced when the words left his mouth—it sounded too much like he was negotiating at a brothel, or a by-the-hour motel.  
  
But she just smiled. “We have a few different therapies—here’s a price list. I own this place, so I can do them all. I’m Vanessa.” She shook his hand warmly.  
  
Dean hardly knew what to do with a situation this normal. He shook her hand and said, “Dean.” He glanced at the list. Yep, pricey. But he didn’t need hot stones or any of that crap. He suppressed the urge to ask how much for her just to touch him for an hour and said, “Uh, I haven’t had a lot of… professional massages, I just want something to, you know, work the kinks out.” Again, he winced at his phrasing, but passed it off. “What do you recommend?”  
  
“Maybe deep tissue or Swedish? They cost the same; if you like, you can just get on the table and see what you like.”  
  
“Perfect.”  
  
Dean paid up front. Vanessa seemed startled to get cash instead of a credit card. Dean was a little freaked out that there was _paperwork._ Definitely not his usual kind of massage place. But he just had to sign a waiver that he wouldn’t sue her if she hurt him. He laughed internally at the idea. He pretended not to notice the line that said “Print Name” and signed his name illegibly in fake handwriting on the signature line, obscuring the last name completely. No pseudonym, just scribbles. Exactly how his life felt.  
  
She didn’t question it, just left the form on her desk and led him back to a “therapy room.” She hung her fancy jacket on the back of the door, revealing a sleeveless blouse underneath. “I’ll heat up some oil while you get undressed. Unless you prefer clothes on, or just your shirt off,” she said casually. “Whatever’s comfortable. I’ll be right back.”  
  
Dean immediately stripped completely and looked himself over. Uh oh. He hadn’t thought of this. He was definitely the worse for wear. At least it was just bruises, and no dried blood (or worse, actual bleeding) to speak of—he brushed roughly at a large scab on his knee, hoping she wouldn’t notice it. He got on the table and lay face down, quelling the odd nervousness that welled up in him.  
  
She came in and he heard her suppressed intake of breath. There was a silence. “Um, Dean,” she said nicely, “Massage isn’t always a good idea if you’ve been injured recently—”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Dean said quickly. “Just a few bruises. I fell down the stairs.” God, listen to him. He sounded like an abused wife.  
  
She was quiet for a minute, and Dean felt a surge of impatience, almost worry, when she didn’t immediately touch him. He heard her rummaging around in a cupboard. “Here. I’ve got some balm that’s really good for bruises. Since you’ve got more of them than unbruised skin, I’ll just use this instead of oil.”  
  
Finally she put her hands on him, and Dean felt a rush of relief so intense he had to suppress a gasp. Sure, he’d been desperate before; he was used to that. But this was different. As Vanessa ran firm, expert hands over him, he wasn’t thinking about getting in her pants. As the ointment soothed his bruises, her hands broke something loose in him, and he wasn’t losing himself in sensuality, either. He was thinking about everything that he’d come here to stop thinking about.  
  
Why he was still hunting. Bobby, and why he lied to him, and how much better Bobby deserved. Dad. Jo, Ellen, Adam, Mom… Lisa and Ben.  
  
Sam. Oh God, Sam.  
  
Grief assaulted him like a pack of werewolves, like a hundred demons with a grudge, like every monster he’d ever fought and killed coming back for just the right piece of him, just the revenge they wanted. And they had it, didn’t they? He was undone. There was nothing left of him.  
  
Dean Winchester did not cry. He wasn’t some emo douchebag. So he had no name, no explanation for, and no defense against the wrenching sobs that wracked him, over and over, while Vanessa touched him.  
  
She stopped for a moment when the torrent began. She stood still, with her hands on his shoulders. She might have asked what was wrong, if he was OK, but he didn’t hear. He knew he should man up, make some excuse, and either stop crying and get his massage or leave now. But he couldn’t. She had unchained this monster inside him and now there was no stopping it. He felt the massage table shaking beneath him as the monster ravaged him.  
  
After a moment, her hands moved on his back again, not a massage but a soothing caress. “OK,” she whispered, close to his ear. “OK. You don’t have to say anything. I’m just going to keep going unless you tell me to stop, OK?”  
  
He couldn’t even nod, but she continued as promised, and Dean shuddered beneath her hands like an abused dog. He felt pleasure now—a painful sort of release, intensely physical where she touched him as well as emotional. It hurt, possibly worse than any torment Dean had ever known. But it was also ecstasy, kneaded from his muscles, threaded through his spirit. She massaged his entire body, and it was as if each part, each muscle contained a different grief.  
  
She turned him over to massage his front side, and in his chest, under his collarbones, she found his terror for Ben and Lisa, his pain that Ben was not his child, his desperate, thwarted love. Moving lower to his solar plexus, she unearthed his nightmares of Hell, for himself but mostly for Sam. Sam, Sammy… his baby brother, his job to protect him, and he had failed.  
  
Sam, whom he had teased for sucking his thumb until he was four, who was always smarter than Dean but treated him like a hero, who pretended to like what Dean liked on TV just so they wouldn’t fight, but who always fought him over what to eat for dinner, who’d broken his heart when he’d left him for Stanford and a hundred times since. Whose heart he had broken so many times and didn’t even know it, or pretended not to, by not wanting him around when he was a teenager, by not calling him at Stanford and not acting like he cared, by pushing him away and letting him go and not letting him go when he should. Vanessa ran her hands over every fight he and Sam had ever had, every harsh word Dean had ever regretted saying.  
  
“Sam,” he whispered aloud. “Sam, I’m sorry.”  
  
She touched his loneliness. She touched him where he still glanced shotgun in the Impala, some part of him expecting to see Sam there, and where he ordered a salad instead of a burger for lunch, just because he knew Sam would want him to.  
  
She worked her way over his regret over the apocalypse, his part in breaking the seals, his agonizing over whether Sam could have been spared if Dean had been the one to say yes instead, over whether he should have let him do what he did.  
  
Her touch was particularly warm there, almost hot, and suddenly his sobs stopped, and there was stillness inside him, perfect stillness as she finished the massage.  
  
It was not gone, the monster, but she had lulled it to sleep. He dried his face on the Kleenex she handed him, and sat up awkwardly. She handed him a robe, which he draped across his lap.  
  
“Better now?” she asked, with a sad smile.  
  
He looked up at her. God, what a woman. If only he had enough heart left to give her.  
  
“So much better,” he answered. “Don’t know where that came from, sorry.”  
  
“I’m guessing it came from Sam. Do you mind if I ask who Sam is?”  
  
“My brother. He died recently.”  
  
“Oh, Dean.” To his surprise, she embraced him then, and he didn’t resist, resting his head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. But, you know… he’s at peace now.”  
  
Dean winced, hoping she wouldn't see it. “Thanks, Vanessa. So much. I… that was so much more than I paid for, I feel like I should buy you dinner or something.”  
  
She laughed and released him, standing back. “No, not at all. It’s not the first time someone has cried on my table, you know. And massage therapy is a healing profession. I did what I could for you. I wish it could be enough.”  
  
Of course it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever could be. But it was what Dean had desperately needed, and he was grateful. He felt the ocean of grief, still there, lapping at his heels. It would never be gone, never be emptied, but he didn’t have to drown in it.  
  
It was sunset when he left. He drove more slowly than usual, lost in thought. He felt light, too light, and shaky, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. But he felt a little more like himself again.  
  
Maybe it was time to drive to Sioux Falls. He rather thought it was. He felt the itch that meant it was time to find the next case, and surely Bobby would have one. It was time he told him the truth, anyway, he thought as he pulled onto the highway  
  
Sam was gone forever. The world was saved. But somehow, all Dean could think to do was keep on saving it.

~The End~

 


End file.
